Caught in the Dark

by Ann Jensen

  She raised a well plucked eyebrow. “Isn’t all GUI code bad?”

  “Not like this. It was full of hidden routines and custom crap that not only slowed everything down, but actually bypassed encryption in others. I only parsed through maybe half of it, but there is no way it is worth fixing. Starting from scratch would be better and faster.”

  “Hold up there. Did you just say the GUI bypasses encryption?”

  “Yeah, I know this program is still in Beta, but I don’t care how annoying it is to enter passwords, you shouldn’t put hacks like that into code. What if you forgot to pull them before the program went live? It is amateur hour.”

  “Which program were you working on?” Jojo’s voice lost its teasing tone.

  “I tried to text you and ask what to do, but you said you were swamped.”

  “I’m not mad at you, darlin, and I shouldn’t even be telling you this much, but we had a major hack happen yesterday that had most of us stumped.”

  “Yeah, no breaking news there. Tek thinks I did it.”

  “Tek?”

  “Oh, sorry. Mr. Vallier came to Darklights and interrogated me.”

  “Damn that fool.” Jojo huffed. “He had the nerve to accuse me of sharing classified information with you.”

  “But you didn’t! You aren’t in trouble, are you?” Angela couldn’t stand it if she caused any harm in Jojo’s life. She would do anything necessary to fix things for her friend who was now a vital pillar within her life.

  “I best not be,” Jojo snapped dramatically above her head. “But I told that man he didn’t have the sense God gave little apples if he thought you were behind the hack.”

  Jojo’s support felt almost as good as Tek’s betrayal had hurt. More tears leaked out of her eyes as she remembered how he had turned something so amazing into nothing more than a dirty trick. Her mind relived the amazing moment right before it all fell apart. And he didn’t even let me come!

  Angela’s body was a rollercoaster of conflicting sensations. She ached to feel him inside her, her stomach boiled with nerves and distrust, and her head pounded from thinking of how her friend might lose her job.

  Jojo burst out laughing, wiping nonexistent tears from her eyes. “Who exactly didn’t let you come?”

  “I said that out loud?” Heat flushed her cheeks.

  “Oh, you definitely did. Though I’m crossing my fingers and toes that, him, isn’t who I think it is. Didn’t we discuss earlier what an epically bad idea hooking your wagon to that man was?”

  “Not my fault, he came after me!” Angela’s shoulders dropped. “And there will be no wagon hooking.”

  Jojo spread her arms and motioned for Angela to snuggle in close. She did, loving the comfort she found in her muscular arms.

  “Now tell Jojo all about it. I need context and details if I’m going to help you plot proper revenge.”

  She shook her head. “Can’t do revenge. I promised.”

  “Well, I didn’t. So spill.”

  Angela gave her friend the story, not sparing herself any embarrassment. The only thing she left out was what Clean’s secret was. By the time she was done, both of them were tense and shaking.

  Jojo’s breath shook as she spoke. “He tried to interrogate you like a two-bit spy in a bad porno movie?”

  Angela’s chuckle was dry. “I wouldn’t call it a bad porno movie, but yes.”

  Jojo scowled. “How good his bedroom skills are is not the point. If the club hadn’t had that safe word thingy he wasn’t planning on stopping.”

  “I don’t think he would have kept up the sex stuff.” Was she being naïve? She hadn’t believed he was capable of doing what he did. No. She had to believe he would have stopped anything physical. “We seemed to have moved on to the threats portion of the interrogation.”

  “And he knew you are a virgin?” Jojo’s face got all serious. “You are still a virgin, right?”

  Would she still be a virgin if things hadn’t taken a turn for the weird? Probably not. “Yes, and unfortunately, yes.”

  “Good. Did you tell him what you found in the GUI?”

  Crap. She had meant to tell Tek the next time she saw him. But then he had asked for the spy thing, and she had forgotten all about it. “No. It didn’t seem important at the time.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” Jojo sat up and moved so they were facing each other and took her hands. “Let me guess, you were working on GX2 project.”

  Wow. Vallier had to have lots of software she could have been working on. How was Jojo so certain? “Yeah.”

  “Well, the framework for GX2 was pulled from the original GX platform and is being used for a new super-secret project. The differences are only on the backend. So I’m guessing you found the answer to the mystery we have all been banging our heads against.”

  Horror filled her at the thought that what she had seen was in use. “You mean that code is out in the field? There are people actually using it!”

  “Yes.” Her friend squeezed her hands. “It is tempting to let that asshole swing in the wind. But I know you don’t have that in you.”

  “No, I can’t work there anymore, but I have to let them know what Rick’s negligence leaves them open to.”

  “Okay, so here is what we are going to do…”

  Chapter 19

  There isn’t a box of chocolates big enough to fix this mess.

  “What the fuck did you do?” Lisen’s shout preceded her into Tek’s office.

  Her loud shout set off a drumline inside his head. It was eight-thirty in the morning and the Scotch Tek used the previous night to get some sleep was still in his system. He managed a few hours of rest, and his dreams, and the clarity rest brought, told him one thing. He’d fucked up.

  How was he going to fix this? Would she come after him financially? The news was full of women who sued for things much less damming than he had done. She deserved whatever she asked for, but money wouldn’t buy her silence, especially if she believed he was a danger to others. He had given her no reason not to think the worst of him.

  Exhaustion and stress were no excuse. But if he was honest, he wanted more than her silence. He wanted forgiveness. Actually, he wanted to erase the last twenty-four hours and go back to when there was a slight chance of him becoming something special to her.

  Lisen slammed her palms onto his desk, snapping him back into the moment. “Are you listening to me?”

  “The entire floor heard you.” Tek rubbed his eyes. “But you’re going to need to be more specific.”

  Whatever had crawled up Lisen’s ass couldn’t be half as important as figuring out how to convince Angela to help them out in solving the current crisis. Maybe if they could work together, she would see what he’d done was a desperate move by someone who cared deeply for his company and its employees.

  “How about this? Why is Jojo downstairs in her full-on Scary Spice outfit?”

  He did not know what a Scary Spice outfit was or why one of his employees wearing one was a problem. “I don’t know. And why do you care what she is wearing?”

  “I care because she strutted into my office with your gal pal at her side. Slammed down both of their resignations and told me I had twenty minutes to meet them in the conference room with HR or she wouldn’t bother to tell me how to fix the hack.”

  “Wait, what?” Tek stood, trying to make sense of everything. His stomach lurched. Angela quitting shouldn’t be a surprise, but for some reason it hadn’t occurred to him. In all his plans, from the ridiculous to the practical, he had thought she would stay.

  Crap, had she told her friend what he had done? If it got around, he was finished. Tek knew he deserved whatever followed. He just thought he would have more than a few hours to plan.

  He could step down, let Kane and Lisen rebrand. That might be enough to make sure his life’s work didn’t go up in flames. It hit him. They had figured out the hack and were going to tell Lisen. It was good news, great even, but it meant he
would no longer have any excuse for talking to Angela.

  “Holy shit, Tek. How bad is this?” His face probably reflected his thoughts because his unflappable CIO was looking pale.

  He was tempted to blow things off and pray he was wrong about why they were demanding HR, but Tek had never been a coward.

  “Best case, a large cash settlement and an NDA. Worst case, I’ll step down and you and Kane will have to pick up the pieces.”

  Lisen sat down in the chair across from his desk with a stiffness that broadcast her anger loud and clear. “I need more than that.”

  “I questioned her last night and things got out of hand.”

  Through a tight jaw, Lisen asked, “You assaulted her?”

  “No!” Tek ran a hand through his hair. “Not exactly. I…” He huffed out a breath and gave Lisen an abridged version of what happened minus any details about his Brothers.

  Lisen held her fists so tight the knuckles were white. “We have two minutes to get down to HR. We are not done talking. Not by a long shot.”

  Lisen stood and strode out of the room without looking back. Outside of his Brothers, Lisen and Kane were the most important people in his life. Lisen lived and worshipped at the altar of safe, sane, and consensual. Even with all their history, he didn’t know if she would forgive him for breaking the cardinal rule of BDSM by trying to steal a submissive’s choice.

  His fuck up may have cost him more than even he could afford to pay.

  Chapter 20

  Forgive and Forget? I’m neither Jesus nor do I have Alzheimers.

  “Explain to me again, Jojo, why you look like an escapee of the London punk movement and I’m dressed up like a Japanese anime schoolgirl?” Angela pulled down on her short, pleated skirt.

  They were sitting alone at a long table in the same conference room where two days ago she had attended orientation. Lisen was off getting HR per Jojo’s demands. The two of them had stayed up most of the night gathering the evidence to prove what was wrong with the software and a proposal for both the quickest and the best way to fix it. Then Jojo had woken her up and spent over an hour fussing with Angela’s appearance, calling it armoring up for battle.

  “Two reasons. One.” Jojo held up a finger for emphasis. “You need girl power. No stuttering or hesitation. You are Cami or CA-million, undercover superhero, right out of a movie. You are here to save all their asses, even though you owe them N-O-T-H-I-N-G!”

  Okay. That was a good idea. Roleplaying would help her get through this with strength and dignity, even if he showed up. “Right, but why the schoolgirl outfit?”

  Jojo held up a second finger. “Two. I am fabulous in leopard print and you are every geek boy’s fantasy. Even if said boy pretends they’re a billionaire biker bad boy. If he dares show his face, he will immediately regret losing a chance at the fabulousness that is you.”

  How had she gotten so lucky as to have a great friend like Jojo? “It’s not too late to take back your resignation. I know how much you loved working here. I don’t want you to be out of work because of me.”

  “Please, honey child, I have the numbers of several recruiters who have been begging me to jump ship. This magnificent mind will not be sitting idle for any longer than I take to pick up the phone. Besides, I’m saving myself the legal fees I’d incur if I stayed here after beating that man to a bloody pulp.”

  She giggled, trying to picture the two fighting. Jojo was tough, but she wouldn’t stand a chance against the much more muscular and well-trained Tek. Her laughter faded as she realized she would probably never see him again.

  Angela’s self-confidence had taken a hit by what he had done, but her body still longed to find out what he would be like in bed. His deep voice telling her all the dirty things he wanted to do. She wanted his dominance in the bedroom and his challenging, brilliant mind outside of it.

  The door to the room opened and Angela’s breath caught as four people walked in. Lisen was in the lead, followed by a man and woman she didn’t recognize. Tek was last into the room. He looked tired, but somehow still as commanding as ever. His gray eyes locked onto her and Angela felt her knees weaken.

  No. She was a badass superhero, not a whimpering pushover. She would give them her evidence and leave. She took a deep breath and enjoyed how Tek’s gaze heated. Jojo was right, she was every geek’s fantasy. And if she had to walk away, she was going to give him a memory to remember her by.

  Using her best ice princess voice, she addressed the room. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The four sat down on the other side of the table as if readying for battle. HR being present was Jojo’s idea, wanting Tek to sweat that Angela was going to file harassment charges. She doubted a man like him worried about those things, but she had wanted witnesses so their information didn’t get ignored. Angela leaned down and pulled a file folder and a USB drive out of the messenger bag that acted as her purse.

  She slid both across the table to Lisen. Jojo leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms and glaring at Tek. Lisen opened the file and her brow furrowed at the highlighted printouts.

  Angela cleared her throat. “What you are looking at is the code for the GX and GX2 GUI interface. The yellow highlighted portions are vulnerable to any moderately talented hacker, though your excellent encryption would block them from obtaining anything of value.”

  “Why thank you, honey.” Jojo smiled, breaking off her glaring for a moment.

  “Nothing but truth.”

  Lisen flipped through the pages and looked up. “And the pink highlights?”

  Angela leaned forward, doing her best to ignore Tek’s intense stare. “That is what screwed you. If you know where to click and what to type, you can access anything in the databases without credentials. At first I thought this was just sloppy work of someone too lazy to bother with logins. I was wrong.”

  “You’re saying someone did this on purpose?” Tek’s almost whispered voice rattled her calm.

  “Yes. But I want to make something very clear.” Angela gave everyone at the table a stern glare. “That information along with everything on the drive was dropped off anonymously. If asked, you are to say, you do not know where it came from.”

  “Why?” Lisen asked at the same time Tek asked, “Or?”

  Angela sighed. It was time to show them both the carrot and stick.

  “Why doesn’t matter. The or is this, last night I recovered the security footage from Darklights you deleted. If you tell anyone the files came from me, I will release it, along with enough damning information to lose you almost every client you have.”

  “What’s on the drive?” Angela was impressed, Tek’s face showed no reaction, though his voice was tight.

  “Information retrieved from one of your employee’s personal phones. Emails proving, he sold customer information. Off-shore accounts with corresponding payments. The USB also contains everything I could find on who checked the code in without review and trace backs to the workstation IP.” Angela shook her head. “If you’re going to commit a crime, you shouldn’t use your personal phone that backs up to a barely secure cloud service.”

  When they found that information last night, it had shocked her and Jojo both. Hacking Rick’s info had been a hunch after she had seen that most of the damaging code was added or altered after the system went live.

  “I hope that asshole ends up someone’s bitch in jail.” Jojo’s comment startled a laugh out of her.

  Lisen picked up the USB. “Let me guess, it’s encrypted, and you’ll give us the key to this illegally obtained information for some sum of money.”

  “Oh honey,” Jojo responded before she could deny anything. “You know I love your claws as much as any Diva would, but you got my girl all wrong.”

  “Then what does she want?”

  Jojo stood up on her platform heels and leaned forward on the table. “Nothing. She wants nothing.” The drag queen turned her glare on Tek. “What she deserves is for pretty-boy over ther
e to admit he is lower than a set of snake’s testicles. You all should be on your knees thanking Baby Jesus the goddess that is my girl isn’t a vengeful bitch like me.”

  Angela cut in before Jojo could say anymore. “The data isn’t encrypted. I’ll make it easy for you, the person screwing your company is Richard Nelson.”

  Lisen sat back as if stunned. Tek cursed and pulled out his cellphone hitting a few keys.

  “Kane, have Rick Nelson brought to my office and make sure he doesn’t leave.”

  Everyone on the other side of the table had their phones out and were typing furiously. It was time for her and Jojo to leave. Angela caught her friend’s eye, and they both nodded and stood.

  “You will find my suggestions on solutions to your problem at the back of the file.” Angela turned, ready to move on.

  The clack of something metallic hitting the conference table with force had her steps pausing. She looked back and was caught by Tek’s steady gaze. He was standing leaning forward, his breaths coming in a deep steady rhythm.

  “Can I have a moment alone with Miss Turner?”

  “No,” Lisen and Jojo said together.

  The HR people ignored the negative, stood and scurried towards the door. This little scene was probably more than they had ever bargained for.

  Angela studied Tek’s face and posture. Tight shoulders and hands, wide gray eyes that had slight bruising under them. He was a mixture of angry, tired, and somehow pleading, though she knew he would never do that.

  “It’s fine, Jojo.” When her friend crossed her arms with a stubborn glare, Angela sighed. “You can stand outside the glass and make sure he doesn’t do anything.”

  Jojo scowled and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to be alone with him if you don’t want to be.”

  “It’s okay. He can’t hurt me anymore.” Tek flinched at the words Angela knew to be a lie. For some reason she still wanted him, which meant he still had some power over her. She also knew if she didn’t talk to him this one last time, she would regret it. Always wonder what he would have said.